In Northern Mists, by Fridtjof Nansen—A Project Gutenberg eBook

Legends of a happy land or an island far over the sea towards the sunset were evidently widely diffused in Northern Europe in those days, outside Ireland. In Anglo-Saxon literature there is a dialogue between Adrianus and Ritheus (probably of the tenth century), where we read:

“Tell me where the sun shines at night.”... “I tell you in three places: first in the belly of the whale that is called ‘Leuiathan’; and the second season it shines in Hell; and the third season it shines upon the island that is called ‘Glið,’ and there the souls of holy men repose till doomsday.”[351]

This Glið (i.e., the glittering land) is evidently the Land of the Blest, Brandan’s Terra Repromissionis, that lies in dazzling sunshine, after one has passed through darkness and mist; but whether the myth reached the Anglo-Saxons from the Irish seems doubtful.

Pseudo-Gildas’s description (twelfth century) of the isle of “Avallon” (the apple-island of Welsh myth) is also of interest; it is connected with exactly the same ideas as the Irish happy isles:

“A remarkable island is surrounded by the ocean, full of all good things; no thief, no robber, no enemy pursues one there; no violence, no winter, no summer rages immoderately; peace, concord, spring last eternally, neither flower nor lily is wanting, nor rose nor violet; the apple-tree bears flowers and fruit on the selfsame branch; there without stain youths dwell with their maidens, there is no old age and no oppressive sickness, no sorrow, all is full of joy.”[352]

It results, then, from what has here been quoted, that a Grape-island (“Insula Uvarum”) makes its appearance in Irish literature in the eleventh century, at about the same time when Adam of Bremen mentions, from Danish informants, an island called “Winland.” Of the same century again is the Norwegian runic stone from Hönen in Ringerike, on which, as we shall see later, Wineland is possibly mentioned (?) From the form of the runes, S. Bugge ascribes it to the first half of the eleventh century, hardly older, though it may be later. “Insula Uvarum” translated into the Old Norse language could not very well become anything but Vínland (or Víney), since Vínberjarey or Vínberjarland would not sound well. We thus have the remarkable circumstance that an island with the same name and the same properties makes its appearance almost simultaneously in Ireland and in Denmark (and possibly also in Norway). That these Wine-islands or Winelands should have originated entirely independently of one another, in countries which had such close intellectual connection, would be a coincidence of the kind that one cannot very well assume, since it must be regarded as more probable that there was a connection. But Brandan’s Grape-island can scarcely be derived from a Wineland discovered by the Norsemen, since, as has been mentioned, the wine and wine-fruit play such a prominent part in the older Irish legends, and the ancient tale of Bran (“Echtra Brain”) describes the Irish Elysium (“Mag Mell”) as a land with magnificent woods and the true scent of the vine, etc. (see p. 355). In the next place, as has been mentioned, Brandan’s Grape-island bears a resemblance to Lucian’s Grape-island; but as Lucian’s descriptions seem also to have influenced, among others, the tale of the intoxicating wine-fruit in the “Imram Maelduin,” it looks as though Lucian’s stories had reached Ireland (e.g., by Scandinavian travellers or through Arabs ?) long before the Navigatio Brandani was written. As thus the Irish wine-island cannot well be due to a Norse discovery, it becomes probable that Adam’s name Winland (as well as the possible Norwegian name) was originally derived from Ireland, and that it reached the northern countries orally. If the Danes did not get the name from the Norwegians they may have brought it themselves, as they also had direct communication with Ireland.[353] This conclusion, that the name of Wineland came from Ireland, is again strengthened from an entirely different quarter, namely, the Landnámabók, where it is said that Great-Ireland lay near Wineland. As suggested on p. 354, this shows that the Icelanders must have heard both lands spoken of in Ireland. As Ravn Hlymreks-farer is given as the original authority, and after him Thorfinn, earl of Orkney (ob. circa 1064), this may have been at the beginning of the eleventh century; but as the statement came finally from Thorkel Gellisson (and consequently was written down by Are Frode) it may also have been in the second half of that century. In this way we seem to have a natural explanation of the simultaneous appearance of the name in the North.[354]

As the statement in the Landnáma is due to Thorkel Gellisson, it is doubtless most probable that the Wineland that is mentioned for the first time in Icelandic literature in a gloss in Are Frode’s Íslendingabók also has Thorkel (who is mentioned immediately afterwards) for its authority (cf. p. 258), although the sentence might be by Are himself. Thorkel may have heard of this Wineland in Greenland; but it is more likely to be the country he heard of in connection with the mythical Hvítramanna-land from Ireland, and he may have heard that there were said to dwell there wights (or trolls) that were called Skrælings. Two possibilities suggest themselves: either this Wineland with its Skrælings was nothing but the well-known mythical land with its mythical people, which required no further description. It cannot be objected that the sober, critical Are would not have mentioned a mythical country in this way; for, if he was capable of believing in a Hvítramanna-land, he could also believe in such a Wineland. Or, on the other hand, it was a land which had actually been discovered and to which the name of the mythical country had been transferred. The latter hypothesis might be strengthened by other things that point to the Greenlanders having really found land in the west. But, on the other hand, if a country actually discovered is meant, it is curious that neither Are nor the Landnáma makes any mention of the discovery, whereas the discovery of Greenland is related at some length, and also that of Hvítramanna-land. Again, when Eric the Red came to Greenland, such a land had in any case not been discovered, so that it could not have been he who named the Eskimo after the inhabitants of that land, whereas Are might readily suppose that he had taken the name of Skrælings from the people of the mythical country; thus Are’s words, as they now stand, would have a clearer meaning.

It may also be worth mentioning that in the only passage of the Sturlubók where Wineland is alluded to, it is called “Irland et Goda.” This has generally been regarded as a copyist’s error; but that it was due to misreading of an indistinctly written “Vinland” is not likely; it might rather be due to a careless repetition, since “Irland et Mikla” is mentioned just before. This is most probable. It may, however, be supposed that it is not an error, and that just as the latter is an alternative name for Hvítramanna-land, so “Irland et Góða” may be a corresponding alternative name for Wineland, which was situated near it. We should thus again be led to Ireland as the home of the name. In any case the uncertainty which prevails in the versions of the name of Wineland given in the oldest authorities is striking (as discussed in the last note). Nothing of the same sort occurs in the transmission of other geographical names, and a form such as Vindland in Hauk’s Landnáma cannot be explained as merely a copyist’s error. Again, Eric’s Saga in the Hauksbók has the name correctly, although this saga as well as the Landnáma was to a great extent copied by Hauk Erlendsson himself. This may point to the form Vindland having occurred in the original from which the Landnáma was copied. This discloses uncertainty in the very reading of the name, and it seems also to point to its having been a mythical country and not the name of a known land that had been discovered.

To any one who is familiar with Norse place-names, the addition “hit góða” to Wineland must appear foreign and unusual. It is otherwise only known in the northern countries from the name “Landegode” (originally “Landit Góða”) on the coast of Norway, for an island west of Bodö. The same name was also used (and is still used in Stad and Herö) for Svinöi, a little island off Sunnmör, and for Jomfruland (south of Langesund). It has been generally taken for a so-called tabu-name;[355] but the explanation suggested to me by Moltke Moe seems more probable, that it was a designation of fairylands, which lay out in the ocean, and which were thought to sink into the sea as one approached them. The above-mentioned Norwegian islands would quite answer to such conceptions, especially when they loom up and seem larger, and all three islands were formerly fairylands (“huldrelande”). The original germ of the belief in fairies (“huldrer”) is the worship of the departed. “Hulder” means “hidden” (i.e., the hidden people). Fairylands are therefore the islands of the hidden, or of the departed, and these again are the Fortunate Isles or the Isles of the Blest. A parallel to this is that “Hades” in Greek means the invisible. And, as we have seen (p. 356), the nymph Calypso (== the hidden one) answers to our “hulder.” When Bran, in the Irish legend alluded to, meets on the sea Manannán mac Lir (i.e., son of the Sea), king of the sea-people, lord of the land of the dead, he tells Bran that without being able to see it he is sailing over Mag Mell (the happy plain), where happy people are sitting drinking wine, and where there is a splendid forest with vines, etc.; and the Irish happy land “Tír fo-Thuin” is, as we have said (p. 358), the land under the wave. The lands or islands of the departed in course of time became the habitations of the invisible ones (spirits), of those who possess more than human wisdom, and have a specially favourable lot; by this means the idea of a fortunate land with favoured conditions, far surpassing the ordinary lot of men, became more and more emphasised. This development may be followed both with regard to classical ideas of the Fortunate Islands and to Norse conceptions of fairylands.

That the Greeks connected the happy land with the hidden people who move upon the sea may perhaps be concluded even from the Odyssey’s description of the Phæacians, who dwelt in the happy land, the glorious Scheria, far in the western ocean (see above, p. 347). That they may be compared with our fairies (“huldrefolk”) appears perhaps from the name itself, which may come from φαιός (== dark) and mean “dark man,” “the hidden man” [cf. Welcker, 1833, p. 231].[356] They sail at night, always shrouded in clouds and darkness, in boats as swift “as wings and the thoughts of men” [Od. vii. 35 f.]. The “huldrefolk” also travel by night (cf. p. 378). In Ireland and in Iceland the way to fairyland is through darkness and mist, or sea or water [cf. Gröndal, 1863, pp. 25, 38]; and it is the same in Nordland. A blending of the fairies (“síd”-people) and the inhabitants of the happy land or promised land is particularly observable in the Irish legends [cf. Zimmer, 1889, pp. 276 f.]. The people of the “síd” dwell partly in grave-mounds (and are thus like our “haugebonde,” or mound-elf), they may also live in happy lands far west in the sea or under the sea, and are thus sea-elves, but on the whole they most resemble our “huldrefolk.” The “síd”-woman entices men like our “hulder”; in the tale of “Condla Ruad” [Connla the Fair; cf. Zimmer, 1889, p. 262] she comes from the Land of the Living (“Tír na-m-Beó”), far across the sea, and entices Connla to go with her in a glass boat to the “Great Strand,” where there only were women and maidens. This Irish paradise of women out in the ocean has, as we have said (p. 355), much in common with the German Venusberg, and with the invisible country of our “huldrefolk.” But the “huldrefolk” dwell now in mountains and woods, now on islands in the sea or under the sea. As will be seen, the ideas of the Fortunate Isles or of the Promised Land and those of fairyland thus often coincide. It may be added that among many peoples the souls of the dead are carried across the sea in a boat or ship to a land in the west.

This is evidently connected with the river of death, Styx, Acheron or Cocytus, of the Greeks, over which Charon ferried the souls to the lower regions in a narrow two-oared boat. Procopius [De bello Goth., iv. 20] relates that according to legends he himself heard from the natives, all the souls of the departed are carried every night at midnight from the coast of Germania to the island of Brittia (i.e., Britain) which lies over against the mouth of the Rhine between Britannia (i.e., Brittany) and Thule (Scandinavia). He whose turn it is among the dwellers on the coast to be ferryman hears at midnight a knocking at his door and a muffled voice. He goes down to the beach, sees there an empty, strange boat, into which he gets and begins to row. He then notices that the boat is filled so that the gunwale is only a finger’s breadth above the water, but he sees nothing. As soon as he arrives at the opposite shore, he notices that the boat is suddenly emptied, but still he sees no one, and only hears a voice announcing the names and rank of the arrivals. The invisible souls, who always move in silence, answer to the elves.

In many ways the connection between the dead and the sea is apparent. Balder’s body was laid in a ship on which a pyre was kindled, and it was abandoned to the currents of the sea. The body of the hero Scild in the lay of Beowulf was borne upon a ship, which was carried away by the sea, no one knows whither. Fiosi in Njál’s Saga has himself carried on board a ship and abandoned to the sea, and afterwards the ship is not heard of again, etc.[357]

That the fairylands should be called “Landit Góða” may be due to their exceeding fertility (cf. the huldreland’s waving cornfields); but it may also, as Moltke Moe has pointed out, have a natural connection with the tendency the Germanic peoples in ancient times seem to have had of attaching the idea of “good” to the fairies and the dead. In Nordland the “huldrefolk” are called “godvetter” (“good wights”) [cf. I. Aasen]; this among the Lapps has become “gúvitter,” “gufihter,” “gufittarak,” etc., as a name for supernatural beings underground or in the sea;[358] the Swedes in North Sweden use the word “goveiter.” The mound-elf (“haugebonden”), Old Norse “haugbui” (the dweller in the mound), who was the ancestor of the clan, or the representative of the departed generations, is called in Nordland “godbonden.”[359]

The underground people are called in Iceland “ljúflingar,” in German “die guten Leute,” in English-speaking Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man “the good people,” “good neighbours,” or “the men of peace.”[360] In Highland Gaelic they are called “daoine sith,” in Welsh “dynion mad.” In Swedish and Danish we have the designation “nisse god-dreng” (“nisse good boy”) or “goda-nisse,” in Norwegian “go-granne” (“good neighbour”); (in Danish also “kære granne,” “dear neighbour”); in German “Guter (or lieber) Nachbar,” or “Gutgesell” is used of a goblin; in Thuringia “Gütchen,” “Gütel”; in the Netherlands “goede Kind,” and in England “Robin Goodfellow.”

That the epithet “good” applied to supernatural beings, especially underground ones, is so widely spread, even among the Lapps, shows it to have been common early in the Middle Ages.

It is of minor interest in this connection to inquire what the origin of the epithet may have been. We might suppose that it was the thought of the departed as the happy, blest people; but on the other hand it may have been fear; it may have been sought to conciliate them by giving them pet-names, for the same reason that thunder is called in Swedish “gobon” (godbonden), “gofar,” “gogubben,” “gomor,” “goa” (goa går),[361] which is also Norwegian.

“Hit góða” is the altogether good, the perfect, therefore the fortunate land. When the legend of the “Insulæ Fortunatæ” and of the Irish happy lands—one of which was the sunken fairyland “Tír fo-Thuin,” the land under-wave—reached the North, it was quite natural that the Northerners should translate the name by one well known to them, “Landit Góða” (fairyland, the land of the unseen); indeed, the name of Insulæ Fortunatæ could not well have been translated in any other way. But as wine was so conspicuous a feature in the description of this southern land of myth, both in Isidore and among the Irish, and as wine more than any other feature was symbolical of the idea of happiness, it is natural, as we have seen, that the Northerners came very soon to call this country, like Brandan’s Grape-island, “Vínland”; thus “Vínland hit Góða” may have arisen by a combination of “Vínland” and “Landit góða,” to distinguish it from the native “Landit Góða,” the fairyland of the Norwegians. A combination of “hit góða” with a proper name is otherwise unknown, and thus points to “Landit Góða” as the original form.[362]

Moltke Moe has given me an example from Gotland of a fairyland having received a laudatory name answering to Wineland, in that the popular fairyland “Sjóhaj” or “Flåjgland,” out at sea, is called Smörland.[363] Sjóhaj is a mirage on the sea; and “Flåjgland” comes from “fljuga,” to fly, i.e., that which drifts about, floating land. It now only means looming, but it may originally have been fairyland, and it is evident that it is here described as particularly fertile. With “Smörland” may be compared Norwegian place-names compounded with “smör”: “Smörtue,” “Smörberg,” “Smörklepp.” O. Rygh includes these among “Laudatory names ... which accentuate good qualities of the property or of the place.”[364] Similarly in the place-names of Shetland: “Smerrin” (== “smjǫr-vin,” fat, fertile pasture), “Smernadal” (== “smjǫr-vinjar-dalr,” valley with fat pasture), “de Smerr-meadow” (== originally: “smjor-eng” or “smjǫr-vin”), “de Smerwel-park” (probably == “smjor-vollr”), “de Smorli” (probably == “smjor-hlið”). J. Jakobsen [1902, p. 166] says that “‘smer(r)’ (Old Norse ‘smjǫr’ or ‘smœr,’ Norwegian ‘smör,’ butter) means here fertility, good pasture, in the same way as in Norwegian names of which the first syllable is ‘smör.’” With this may be compared the fact that even in early times the word “smör” was used to denote a fat land, as when Thorolf in the saga said that “it dripped butter from every blade of grass in the land they had found” (i.e., Iceland, see above, p. 257, cf. also “smjǫr-tisdagr” == “Fat Tuesday,” “Mardi gras”). That the fairylands were connected with fertility appears also from a Northern legend. Nordfuglöi, to the north of Karlsöi, was once a troll-island, hidden under the sea and invisible to men, thus a “huldre” island. But then certain troll-hags betook themselves to towing it to land; a Lapp hag who happened to cast her eye through the door-opening saw them come rowing with the island, so that the spray dashed over it, and cried: “Oh, what a good ‘food-land’ we have now got!” And thereupon the island stopped at the mouth of the sea, where it now is.[365] The fertility of fairyland is doubtless also expressed in the incident of the sow that finds it (see later), usually having a litter there. Its fertility appears again, perhaps, in H. Ström’s [1766, p. 436] mention of “Buskholm” (i.e., Bush-island) in Herö (Sunnmör), which was inhabited by underground beings and protected, therefore wholly overgrown with trees and bushes. The Icelandic elfland “is delightful, covered with beautiful forests and sweet smelling flowers” [cf. Gröndal, 1863, p. 25], and the Irish is the same.

Legends of islands and countries that disappeared or moved, like the fairylands, are widely diffused. To begin with, the Delos (cf. δηλόω, become visible) of the Greeks floated about in the sea for a long time, as described by Callimachus [v.]; now the island was found, now it was away again, until it was fixed among the Cyclades. Ireland, which also at a very early time was the holy island (cf. p. 38), floated about in the sea at the time of the Flood. Lucas Debes [1673, pp. 19 ff.] relates that “at various times a floating island is said to have been seen” among the Faroes; but no one can reach it. “The inhabitants also tell a fable of Svinöe,[366] how that in the beginning it was a floating island: and they think that if one could come to this island, which is often seen, and throw steel upon it, it would stand still.... Many things are related of such floating islands, and some think that they exist in nature.” Debes does not believe it. “If this was not described of the properties of various islands, I should say that it was icebergs, which come floating from Greenland: and if that be not so, then I firmly believe that it is phantoms and witchcraft of the Devil, who in himself is a thousandfold craftsman.” Erich Pontoppidan [1753, ii. p. 346] defends the devil and protests against this view of Debes, that it is “phantasmata and sorcery of the devil,” and says: “But as, according to the wholesome rule, we ought to give the Devil his due, I think that the devil who in haste makes floating islands is none other than that Kraken, which some seamen also call ‘Söe-Draulen,’ that is, the sea troll.”

Of Svinöi in the Faroes precisely the same legend exists as of similar islands in Norway (see p. 378), that they came “up,” or became visible, through a sow upon which steel had been bound [cf. Hammershaimb, 1891, p. 362].

In many places there are such disappearing islands. Honorius Augustodunensis makes some remarkable statements in his work “De imagine mundi” [i. 36], of about 1125. After mentioning the Balearic Isles and the Gorgades, he says: “By the side of them [lie] the Hesperides, so called from the town of Hesperia. There is abundance of sheep with white wool, which is excellent for dyeing purple. Therefore the legend says that these islands have golden apples (‘mala’). For ‘miclon’ [error for ‘malon’] means sheep in Greek.[367] To these islands belonged the great island which according to the tale of Plato sank with its inhabitants, and which exceeded Africa and Europe in extent, where the curdled sea (‘Concretum Mare’) now is.... There lies also in the Ocean an island which is called the Lost (‘Perdita’); in charm and all kinds of fertility it far surpasses every other land, but it is unknown to men. Now and again it may be found by chance; but if one seeks for it, it cannot be found, and therefore it is called ‘the Lost.’ Men say that it was this island that Brandanus came to.” It is of special interest that thus as early as that time a disappearing island occurred near the Fortunate Isles.

Columbus says in his diary that the inhabitants of Ferro and Gomera (Canary Isles) assert that every year they see land to the west. Afterwards expeditions were even sent out to search for it. The Dutchman Van Linschoten speaks in 1589 of this beautiful lost land under the name of “San Borondon” (St. Brandan), a hundred leagues to the west of the Canaries. Its inhabitants are said to be Christians, but it is not known of what nation they are, or what language they speak;[368] the Spaniards of the Canaries have made many vain attempts to find it. The same island, which sometimes shows itself near the Canaries, but withdraws when one tries to approach it, still lives in Spanish folk-lore under the name of “San Morondon.”[369]

On the coast of the English Channel sailors have stories of floating islands, which many of them have seen with their own eyes. They always fly before ships, and one can never land there. They are drawn along by the devil, who compels the souls of drowned men who have deserved Hell and are damned, to stay there till the Day of Judgment. On some of them the roar of a terrible beast is heard; and sailors look upon the meeting with such an island as a sinister warning.[370]

Curiously enough, there is said to be a myth of “a floating island” among the Iroquois Indians. In their mythology the earth is due to the Indian ruler of a great island which floats in space, and where there is eternal peace. In its abundance there are no burdens to bear, in its fertility all want is for ever precluded. Death never comes to its eternal quietude—and no desire, no sorrow, no pain disturbs its peace.[371] These ideas remind one strikingly of the Isles of the Blest, and are probably derived from European influence in recent times. Again, at Boston, in America, there is found a myth of an enchanted green land out in the sea to the east; it flies when one approaches, and no white man can reach this island, which is called “the island that flies.” An Indian, the last of his tribe, saw it a few times before his death, and set out in his canoe to row, as he said, to the isle of happy spirits. He disappeared in a storm the like of which had never been known, and after this the enchanted island was never seen again [cf. Sébillot, 1886, p. 349].

Even the Chinese have legends of the Isles of the Blest, which lie 700 miles from the Celestial Kingdom out in the Yellow Sea, and gleam in everlasting beauty, everlasting spring and everlasting gladness. The wizard Sun-Tshe is said once to have extorted from a good spirit the secret of their situation, and revealed the great mystery to the emperor Tshe-Huan-Ti (219 B.C.). Then the noblest youths and the most beautiful maidens of the Celestial Kingdom set out to search for Paradise, and lo! it suddenly rose above the distant horizon, wrapped in roseate glow. But a terrible storm drove the longing voyagers away with cruel violence, and since then no human eye has seen the Isles of the Blest [after Paul d’Enjoy, in “La Revue”].[372]

This is the same conception of the floating mirage that we meet with again in the Norse term “Villuland” (from “villa” == illusion, mirage, glamour), which is found, for instance, in Björn Jónsson of Skardsá applied to the fabulous country of Frisland (south of Iceland); it is called in one MS. “Villi-Skotland,” which is probably the mythical “Irland it Mikla” (Great-Ireland), since the Irish were called Scots. Are Mársson, according to the Landnáma, reached this “Villuland” and stayed there. It is remarkable that his mother Katla, according to the Icelandic legend in the poem “Kǫtlu-draumr” (Katla’s dream), was stolen by an elf-man, who kept her for four nights.[373] It may be this circumstance that led to its being Are who found the elf-country to the west of Ireland, although it is true that according to the Kǫtlu-draumr it was his one-year-older brother Kar who was the offspring of the four nights; but the elf-man had asked that his son should be called Are.

There are many such fairylands along the coast of Norway, which used to rise up from the sea at night, but sank in the daytime.[374] If one could bring fire or steel upon them, then the spell was broken and they remained up; but the huldrefolk avenged themselves on the person who did this, and he was turned to stone; therefore it was usually accomplished by domestic animals which swam across to these islands. Many of them have come up in this way, and for this reason they frequently bear the names of animals. The most probable explanation is doubtless that they were originally given the names of animals from a similarity in shape, or some other reason; and the myth is a later interpretation of the name. It was often a pig, preferably a sow, that had acquired the habit of swimming over to the fairyland, and it frequently had litters there; the people of the farm, who noticed that it occasionally stayed away, bound steel upon it, and the island was hindered from sinking; “therefore such fairy islands are often called Svinöi.” In this way Svinöi in Brönöi (in Nordland, Norway) came up, as well as Svinöi in the Faroes, and doubtless it was the same with Svinöi or Landegode in Sunnmör. It was also through a sow that Tautra, in Trondhjemsfjord, was raised, besides Jomfruland, and the north-western part of Andöi (in Vesterålen). Nay, even Oland in Limfjord (Jutland) became visible through a sow with steel bound on it, which had a litter. Other islands, like Vega and Sölen, were raised by a horse or an ox, etc. Gotland was also a fairyland, but it stayed up through a man bringing fire to it.[375] Some fairy islands lie so far out at sea that no domestic animal has been able to swim over to them, and therefore they have not yet come up; such are Utröst, west of Lofoten, Sandflesa, west of Trænen, Utvega, west of Vega, Hillerei-öi, and Ytter-Sklinna, in Nordre Trondhjems Amt, and hidden fairylands off Utsire, off Lister, and to the south-west of Jomfruland.[376]

It is interesting that the notion of a sow being the cause of people coming into possession of fertile islands can also be illustrated from mediæval England. William of Malmesbury relates in his “De antiquitate Glastoniensis ecclesiæ” [cap. 1 and 2], which belongs to the twelfth century before 1143, that Glasteing “... went in search of his sow as far as Wellis, and followed her from Wellis by a difficult and boggy path, that is called ‘Sugewege,’ that is to say, ‘the sow’s way’; at last he found her occupied in suckling her young beneath the apple-tree beside the church of which we are speaking; from this are derived the names that have come down to our time, that the apples of this tree are called ‘ealdcyrcenes epple,’ that is to say, ‘the apples of the old church,’ and the sow ‘ealdcyrce suge.’ While other sows have four feet, this one, strangely enough, has eight. This Glasteing, then, who came to this island and saw that it was flowing with all good things, brought all his family and established himself there and dwelt there all his life. This place is said to be populated from his offspring and the race that sprang from him. This is taken from the ancient writings of the Britons.

“Of various names for this island. This island, then, was first called by the Britons ‘Ynisgwtrin’; later, when the Angles subdued the island, the name was translated into their language as ‘Glastynbury’ or Glasteing’s town, he of whom we have been speaking. The island also bears the famous name of ‘Avallonia.’ The origin of this word is the following: as we have related, Glasteing found his sow under an apple-tree by the old church; therefore he called ... the island in his language ‘Avallonia,’ that is ‘The isle of apples’ (for ‘avalla’ in British means ‘poma’ in Latin).... Or else the island has its name from a certain Avalloc, who is said to have dwelt here with his daughters on account of the solitude of the place.”[377]

This Somerset sow with its young and with eight legs, like Sleipner, must be Norse. The Norse myth of the sow must have found a favourable soil among the Celts, as according to the ideas of Celtic mythology the pig was a sacred animal in the religion of the Druids, specially connected with Ceridwen, the goddess of the lower world. The Celts must have heard of the pig that by the help of steel causes fairylands to remain visible; but regarded this as being connected with the animal’s sacred properties. It cannot have been an originally Celtic conception, otherwise we should meet with it in other Celtic legends. Moreover the island in this case is not invisible, nor has the sow any steel upon her; these are features that have been lost in transmission. On the other hand the incident of the sow becoming pregnant in the newly found land has been preserved.

In the ocean to the west of Ireland there lay, as already mentioned (p. 354), many enchanted islands. They are in part derived from classical and oriental myths; but the native fairies (the síd-people) and fairylands have been introduced here also (p. 371). Even in the lakes of Ireland there are hidden islands, marvellously fertile with beautiful flowers.[378] Giraldus Cambrensis (twelfth century) says that on clear days an island appeared to the west of Ireland, but vanished when people approached it. At last some came within bowshot, and one of the sailors shot a red-hot arrow on to it, and the island then remained fixed. The happy island “O’Brasil” (“Hy-Breasail,” see p. 357) west of Ireland appears above the sea once in every seventh year—“on the edge of the azure sea ...” and it would stay up if any one could cast fire upon it.[379]

It is no doubt possible that myths of “villulands” or “huldrelands” far away in the sea may have arisen in various places independently of one another;[380] they may easily be suggested by mirage or other natural phenomena, and ideas about happiness are universal among men. But through many of these myths may be traced features so similar that we can discern a connection with certainty and can draw conclusions as to a common origin of the same conceptions.

That Leif of all others, the discoverer of the fortunate land, should have received the unusual surname of “hinn Heppni” (the Lucky) is also striking. There is only one other man in the sagas who is called thus: Hǫgni hinn Heppni, and he belongs to the period of the Iceland land-taking, but is only mentioned in a pedigree. Just as according to ancient Greek ideas and in the oldest Irish legends it was only vouchsafed to the chosen of the gods or of fortune to reach Elysium or the isle of the happy ones, so Leif, who according to tradition was the apostle of Christianity in Greenland, must have been regarded by the Christians of Iceland as the favourite of God or of destiny, to whom it was ordained to see the land of fortune. It is just this idea of the chosen of fate that lies in the words “happ” and “heppinn.” That the name has such an origin is also rendered probable by the fact that the saga-tellers were evidently not clear as to the reason of Leif’s being so called, and it is sometimes represented as due to his having saved the shipwrecked crew (cf. pp. 270, 317), which is meaningless, since in that case it would be the rescued and not Leif who were lucky, and moreover rescue of shipwrecked sailors must have been an everyday affair. The saga-writers therefore knew that Leif had this surname, but the reason for it had in course of time been forgotten.

An interesting parallel to “Leifr hinn Heppni” has been brought to my notice by Moltke Moe in the Nordland “Lykk-Anders,” the name of the lucky brother who came to the fairyland Sandflesa, off Trænen in Helgeland.[381] It is important that this epithet of Lucky is thus only known in Norway in connection with fairyland.[382] That the underground people, “huldrefolk,” bring luck appears also in other superstitions.[383] He who is born with the cap of victory (Glückshaube, -helm, sigurkull, holyhow), which often seems to have the same effect as the fairy hat, is predestined to fortune and prosperity, like a Sunday child.

Another possible parallel to the lucky name is the monk “Felix” (i.e., happy, corresponding to “heppinn”) who occurs in widely diffused mediæval legends. He has a foretaste of the joys of heaven through hearing a bird of paradise; he thinks that only a few hours have passed, from morning to midday, while he is listening to it in rapture, though in reality a hundred years have gone by.[384] Moltke Moe considers it probable that in this case the name Felix may be due to a Germanic conception of the lucky one.

Moltke Moe sees another parallel—a literary one, to be sure—to Leif the Lucky and Lykk-Anders in the Olaf Ásteson of the “Draumkvæde” (Dream-Lay) which he explains as “Ástsonr” == the son of love, God’s beloved son. He is so called because he is so beloved that God has given him a glimpse of the future, so that he sees behind the gate of death.[385]

Even Adam of Bremen’s brief mention of Wineland (cf. pp. 195, 197) bears evident traces of being untrustworthy; thus he says that the self-grown vines in Wineland “give the noblest wine.” Even if wine could be produced from the small wild grapes, it would scarcely be noble, and who should have made it? It is not very likely that the Icelanders and Greenlanders who discovered the country had any idea of making wine. If we except this fable of the wine, and the name itself, which seems to be derived from Ireland (cf. p. 366), but may have been confused with the name of Finland[386] (cf. p. 198), then Adam’s statements about Wineland correspond entirely to Isidore’s description of the Insulæ Fortunatæ, and contain nothing new. Adam’s statement that the island was discovered by many (“multis”) does not agree with the Saga of Eric the Red, which only knows of two voyages thither, but agrees better with its being a well-known mythical country, to which many mythical voyages had been made, or with its being Finmark.[386] Although it may be uncertain whether Adam thought the ice- and mist-filled sea lay beyond Wineland (cf. p. 199), this bears a remarkable resemblance to similar Arab myths of islands that lay near the “Dark Sea” in the west (cf. chapter xiii.); while in any case it shows how myth is introduced into his description of distant regions, and there also he places the mythical abyss of the sea. If one reads through the conclusion of his account (pp. 192 ff.), it will be seen how he takes pains to get a gradual increase of the fabulous: first Iceland with the black inflammable ice and the “simple” communistic inhabitants; then, opposite to the mountains of Svedia, Greenland, with predatory inhabitants who turn blue-green in the face from the sea-water; then Halagland, which is made into an island in the ocean, and which is called holy on account of the midnight sun, of which he gives erroneous information taken from older authors (cf. p. 194, note 2); then Wineland (the Fortunate Isles), with Isidore’s self-grown vines and unsown corn; and then finally he reaches the highest pitch (unless in Harold’s voyage to the abyss of the sea) in the tale of the Frisian noblemen’s voyage to the North Pole, which does not contain a feature that is not borrowed from fables and myths (cf. chapter xii.); now this expedition started from Bremen, where he lived; and he mentions two archbishops as his authorities for it. When we find that all these statements about the northern islands and countries, both before and after the mention of Wineland, are more or less fables or plagiarisms; when we further see what he was capable of relating about countries that lay nearer, and about which he might easily have obtained information—for instance, his Land of Women on the Baltic, to which he transfers the Amazons and Cynocephali of the Greeks (cf. p. 187), and his Wizzi or Albanians or Alanians (sic) with battle-array of dogs (!) in Russia [iv. 19][387]—is it credible that what he says about the most distant country, Wineland, should form the only exception in this concatenation of fable and reminiscence, and suddenly be genuine and not borrowed from Isidore, to whom it bears such a striking resemblance? It must be more probable that he had heard a name, Wineland, perhaps confused with Finland, and in the belief that this meant the land of wine, he then, quite in harmony with what he has done in other places (cf. Kvænland), transferred thereto Isidore’s description of the “Insulæ Fortunatæ.”

When therefore Norsemen (like a Leif Ericson) really found new countries in the west, precisely in the quarter where the mythical “Vínland hit Góða” (or “Insulæ Fortunatæ”) should be according to Irish legend, this was simply a proof that the country did exist; and the tales and ideas about it were transferred to the newly discovered land.